
I’m white woman raised by a former debutante. My racist Southern grandma ran a charm school. As liberated as my mother tried to be, she was still stuck on Rules of Acceptable Female Behavior.
One such rule was “Be an Exemplary Hostess.” When friends came over, they got first pick of snacks, toys, and sleeping bags. They chose the games we played.
When my parents entertained, we children took coats. We handed around hors d’ oeuvres. We got adults drinks. If there was a shortage of chairs, we offered our seats to adults and took the floor. We cleared the table and did the dishes, too. My mother took immense pride in the praise guests heaped upon her for her adorable little helpers.
She shared their praise with us. And since we were many, and desperate for attention, we got a little warped.
An overlooked, middle child like me may have gotten a lot warped.
My Chinese-American in-laws have a very different background. Their first visit had been…something. I still don’t know how to classify it. Adventure? Culture shock? Horror? On their second visit, I was seven months into a miserable pregnancy. I still had the house clean, the sheets clean, the dogs washed, and a vase of flowers in their room.
I was also carrying what should have been my golden ticket to first-class treatment: the number one son of the number one son.
I was sure this visit would be better.
Bahahahahaha.
My father-in-law’s first words weren’t “wow, look at you,” or even “hello.”
Jay told me I was fat. Then he wandered around the house, leaving his luggage for the seven-month pregnant woman to carry to his guestroom like a servant.
Which, unfortunately, is exactly what the daughter-in-law is considered in a traditional Chinese household.
Part of me was tempted to heave Jay’s suitcase at him, but Good Hostess Training remained strong. I schlepped Jay’s luggage to his room.
I greeted my mother-in-law and got dinner on the table. When I heard Jay and Sunny stirring at four the following morning, I heaved myself out of bed and helped them get tea. (This wasn’t just Good Hostess Training, this was self-preservation – Sunny’s last attempt to make tea in my house nearly burnt it down.) Jay wanted a lemon, so I went into the yard with a flashlight and picked one. I scrubbed it and cut wedges. Jay grunted at me and Sunny told me how lucky I was to have free lemons.
My husband can sleep through anything. He slept through tea and toast. He slept through his father, a retired civil engineer, critiquing the interior doors. Jay banged around in Andy’s toolbox. My husband slept on. Not until Jay began banging on our bedroom door with the various tools did Andy stagger out of bed.
Jay spent two days obsessed with our doors. When he wasn’t at Costco or Home Depot with his son, Jay was messing with the doors.
When I got my husband alone, I hissed, “What is he doing?”
Andy shrugged and said, “I don’t know. They aren’t the original doors and the stupid owners before us didn’t hang them exactly right.”
“Yes, but a good houseguest doesn’t SAY that. It’s like a coworker showing up with a new, awful haircut and you say, ‘all wrong!’ and whip out some scissors,” I huffed. “And didn’t you say you’re only good at home improvement because your dad is terrible at it. What if he breaks something?”
“Then we’ll actually have something to fix?”
Prophetic words. Unhappy with the toilet in his preferred bathroom, Jay decided to fix that, too.
Andy was at work and I was browning a pot roast when Sunny complained to me, “That toilet is all messed up!” I ditched the pot roast without a second thought, because when you are seven months pregnant, you need All The Toilets online.
Before I got that bathroom working again, Jay attacked the door to the other bathroom. In a frenzy of ineptitude, Jay wedged it shut and locked it from the outside.
Now I had no bathrooms.
To his credit, my husband came home immediately. He fixed the one toilet. I got the door to the other bathroom unstuck before I wet my pants. (Mostly. Being pregnant sucks.)
Meanwhile, Jay wandered the house, still holding the damned screwdriver. After I got the pot roast in the oven, I suggested that home improvement be put on hold. He ignored me.
Andy, sensing danger, told his parents he needed to get more supplies for the big BBQ we were hosting on Saturday. He herded them out of the house.
I went hunting for the screwdriver.
Yes, hunting. My father-in-law had hidden it in the guest room entertainment center.
So I hid it in the china cabinet.*
Because bathroom access trumps being the perfect hostess.
Especially when you’re pregnant.

*In case you’re wondering, yes, there was hell to pay later. Stay tuned for a post called “Snapped.”
Before the existence of en suite in China, Chinese people used to keep adult potty in their room so they don’t need to walk alone to the outhouse in the dark. You may want to consider getting one when your in-laws visit you in the future. Another alternative is peeing on your husband to emphasize your point. Jokes apart, it’s really unusual for Chinese parents to fix things when there is a pregnancy in the house. It’s a well-known Chinese superstition that renovation during pregnancy is a threat to the baby.
Oh yes, I watched a documentary recently on the revival of Russian Orthodox Church that encourage women to get married at 18 years old then have babies continuously every year until they turned 40 years old. There was a Russian priest practicing that and the spouse looked haggard and shriveled up from all the pregnancies. The funny part was the Russian government awarded the family with medal of honor and rich Russians funded the family. Then, they expect Russians to follow their footsteps. What is your opinion on this?
My opinion is that it is cruel and unusual punishment to either force or brainwash women into multiple pregnancies (looking at you, Mormon church, Catholic church). The rise of new wave nationalism around the globe is fueled by insecure men realizing they are superfluous — of course they want to keep women pregnant and dependent.
That’s an interesting fact about home renovation being taboo during pregnancy. Apparently Jay’s obsessions overrule cultural norms.
You are a patient person. Still waiting for your canonization. Or you trial for murder.
You will testify on my behalf, right?
Absolutely! In either situation! Had he been my FIL he would have gone mysteriously missing long ago.
You will have to tell me your secret formula for dissolving bodies.
There are chemicals for that! 🙂
I need a bigger bathtub.
To be honest I learned a lot of what I know from watching The Black List. What a dark show.
Haha, I’m so glad you hid the screwdriver! Can’t wait to see what’s next with those crazy in-laws.
Thank you! On both counts.
Really looking forward to “Snapped”.
Thanks. You are keeping me on task during holiday insanity!
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that your in laws exist for real. I have never met people so rude in my life, be it in China or anywhere else…
But hey, at least you have stories to tell!
Truly, truth is stranger than fiction.
The joke among writers for the last two years has been that if we submitted a fictional script with a character that did and said exactly what Donald Trump does and says, producers would laugh and reject it, telling us the villain was too ridiculously stupid, too unremittingly evil, and without enough complexity and depth to be anything but cartoonishly one dimensional.
What’s with Chinese people and home improvement?? My inlaws do the exact same thing… every time they used to come to our old house they would bring a big ass tool box set. I just thought: WHY!?
You really do have patience, Autumn. I’m so impressed with you! I would have lost it if I wet my pants (I would be the one running to a hotel room, haha).
Loved that toilet photo at the end 😉
I almost fled my own house (next post).
OMG, I can’t believe other in-laws do this? I am not alone! So are your in-laws any good at fixing things? Do you think they are doing you a service? Are they doing you a service?